


The Peace of Resistance

by islasands



Series: Ben/Adam [1]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Genre: Crossover Pairings, M/M, Power Dynamics, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2011-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islasands/pseuds/islasands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In playing the 'high functioning sociopath', Sherlock Holmes, Benedict has become aware of how deeply he is compromising his own truths/emotions in order to keep his marriage ticking over. Adam, contrari-wise, is on the brink of falling love, yet deep down is wary of being trapped. A chance meeting brings these two together in the ruins of an old church, in the rain, at night. It is a sexual encounter that involves "bare hands and naked truths"...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Peace of Resistance

Characters: Benedict Cumberbatch and Adam Lambert

 

Benedict

Adam

 

================================================================================================================================

The ruins...

 

 

 _"Bare hands, naked truths. I know just the place. Stone walls, stone gates. In the rain. Will that do?_

 _=========================================================================================================  
_

  


> Part 1
> 
> By midnight the bar came into its own as a place for hiding from reality rather than showing off its marketplace optimism. The more determinedly social had left in search of dance floors while those in need of another drink – and of being left alone to drink it in peace - remained.
> 
> Benedict was one of these. He was out of sorts, mainly on account of his failure to bring home a BAFTA, though this disappointment could have been more easily borne had his marriage been in better shape and he did not feel so alone. Things were pretty bad. Worse than bad. For years he had tried to satisfy his wife’s need for cloyingly close companionship but since filming Sherlock he had lost both incentive and will-power. Perhaps the role of ‘high functioning sociopath’ had released similar but latent tendencies in his subconscious. Never before had he come so close to saying aloud the things anyone with brains could see in his clinically stainless, light blue eyes.
> 
> At any rate here he was in an unfamiliar bar, sitting at a table that was walled in on two sides screening him from the bar entrance and windows. He did not want company. He did not want to be recognized. He wanted – what did he want? He wanted a cold wind to run through him. He wanted it to snow in his brain. He wanted to make below-zero calculations that would turn his language into icicles. He wanted to be as unfeelingly intelligent as Sherlock. He could hear the kind of question he would ask; why persist in a relationship so devoid of relations it has never sailed?
> 
> Ben knocked back his drink and went over to the bar for a refill and some water. Far from feeling cold he felt on fire. I'm more parched than detached, he thought. His mouth turned down at the corners, momentarily erasing the clear lines of the upper lip's curves. He glanced at the man sitting on a bar stool just at the place where the bar curved inward. The man had his elbows on the bar and with both hands was holding a glass against his lips. He was using its rim to press his bottom lip down, exposing the shiny underside. Ben had noticed him come into bar sometime earlier. Even in a crowd he wasn't someone you’d easily miss, and not purely on account of his looks - which were striking in a Heathcliffian way – but more for his air of self-possession which somehow reminded Ben of the way wild creatures carry themselves. He gave off the same feel, the same aura, of unassailable introversion. Whatever his business in the world, it was only his business that mattered.
> 
> While Ben was ordering his drink the man had moved his drink away from his face and turned to look up at him. Ben looked away. He paid for his drink. He took a sip. He was about to leave, had no other thought than to leave, when an icicle occurred in his mind and found utterance from his lips.
> 
> “I am currently seeking oblivion - and would like to share my quest with someone like-minded.” Ben raised his glass to the stranger. “I get the feeling you are similarly engaged.”
> 
> Almost instantly he felt embarrassed. His abrupt little stab at stone cold spontaneity had sounded like a line from a play.
> 
> Adam turned to face him. If anyone other than this man had spoken to him he would have flatly said no. He was in no mood for interruptions to his empty train of thought. But what a voice! Adam’s musical ear was aroused. That voice was as low in its cadences as the dusk, as low and dark as the night when it rises out of the earth. He was so taken aback he couldn't think of what to say. Ranging his gaze slowly up and down, he took in the appearance of the voice's owner. Ben smiled but the smile was self-deprecating. The ensuing gap of silence had given him time to back track. He began murmuring apologies for being so ridiculously out of line. But Adam was suddenly all at his attention. He stood up. He waved Ben’s regrets aside. He smiled directly into Ben's eyes. Blue eyes met blue eyes.
> 
> “Not here,’ Adam said, gathering up his coat. “If it’s a journey to oblivion you want - let’s go. We won’t find it here.”
> 
> Part 2
> 
> Once outside, standing beneath a streetlight, with a cold wind throwing sleet against their faces, they both felt shy. The bravado of alcohol was behind them, along with the intimacy of the bar. What to do now? What to say? They stared at each other and burst out laughing.
> 
> “I’m afraid I have hijacked you to no purpose,” Ben shrugged.
> 
> “We’ll see,” Adam said. “The night is young. Walk with me.” He proffered his arm. And Ben took it – but not without hesitation, for the thought crossed his mind that the gesture was one he was accustomed to making, not receiving. Adam seemed to know what he was thinking. He squeezed Ben’s linked arm and smiled at the nothing that lay ahead.
> 
> “What are you really looking for?” he asked.
> 
> “A finish line. A decent night's sleep. I don’t know. I’m Ben, by the way. And I don’t usually...”
> 
> “Ben,” Adam repeated. “Well, Ben, likewise.” He grinned at Ben, while inwardly smirking at himself. The faces of some of the men he had slept with on the slightest of pretexts ran past his inner eye like strangers on an escalator. None of them memorable. Except Yves, perhaps. But Yves was his soulmate. They paused at the traffic lights.
> 
> “You’re an exception to my flexible rule” he said, more closely taking in Ben’s face and wet hair. The irises of his eyes, even in the darkness, were so light they looked probing like the lenses of tiny telescopes. His upper lip had one of those definite bows that forces the mouth to look permanently pensive, sensitive. His hair was surrendering its propensity to curl to the rain and one of these had proverbially fallen in a perfect spiral right in the middle of his forehead. What was the rhyme? He reached up and flicked the curl. “And when he was good, he was very, very good...” Ben bore his scrutiny and the nursery song reference without flinching. Let him look. Let him see. But nonetheless he shivered.
> 
> “Wait a minute,” Adam said. He released Ben’s arm and rummaged in his pockets. “Put these on,” he said. Ben looked at the gloves. “Go on,” Adam said. He watched as Ben put them on. He held out his hands and without thinking Ben laid his own on their upturned palms. They both stared at their touching hands, as though they were holding something of interest, something to wonder at that didn't belong to either of them and that neither had ever seen before.
> 
> The lights changed and they crossed the road. As they walked Adam took up where he had left off. "I’m glad I met you. I’ve had a hectic week, tomorrow I leave for home, and tonight I wanted time out from having to deal with people." Adam glanced at Ben and smiled at the misgivings in Ben’s eyes. “I don’t feel l have to deal with you. Quite the opposite. You’re very pretty, you know.”
> 
> Ben was startled out of his own reverie of appraisal. The thing he had been avoiding thinking suddenly forced its way out into the open.
> 
> “Look I’m sorry – “ He tried to think of the man’s name and realised he didn't even know it.
> 
> “Adam,” said Adam, helpfully.
> 
> “Adam. I’m sorry if... but I don’t think we’re – this just isn't – I’m sorry, but –“
> 
> “But what? You want a journey to oblivion and I know just the place where you can start.”
> 
> “I should be heading home,” Ben said.
> 
> “Come,” Adam said, indicating a covered shop doorway. “Talk to me here.”
> 
> “I should go home, “ Ben muttered. But in a flash Ben saw himself climbing into bed with his wife. He felt her hand creeping over his waist. No matter how late he stayed up she was always waiting. That little hand sliding over to lie against his abdomen. Then the press of her lips against his spine. Then her soft greeting. The touch of her knees as she pushed her legs into the crook of his. She melted into him like water into a sponge. Ben shuddered. He had been avoiding Adam’s eyes. Now he met their cheerful, inquiring gaze.
> 
> “It is cold as fuck,”Ben said. There was a long pause. Adam watched him thoughtfully. What would his decision be? Ben noticed the smoky smears around Adam's eyes, the rain glistening on his face, the imperfections of his skin, the hint of freckles, the slant of his eyebrows. The thought came to him that he wanted to take off his gloves and touch that face. He swallowed.
> 
> “Very well. Obliviano. Let’s do it. Where exactly.does the journey start?”
> 
> “Here,” Adam answered. "Right here." He slowly ran the tip of his forefinger around Ben’s lips.
> 
> “Oh God,” Ben burst out laughing. “Oh dear God, no. You want to kiss me!” He put his hand on Adam’s chest, as though to push him away, but Adam pushed his arm aside, reached out, grabbed his coat lapels, and pulled him against him.
> 
> “Why not?” he laughed into Ben’s face. “I think you want me to. In fact, I know you do. You've been deliberately being pretty from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
> 
> Ben was only vaguely aware of the dissonant chorus in his head, voices saying to run, voices saying to stay. He was overwhelmed by the sensation of having his entire body held steady, as though by a wall. He pulled away but only in the hope that Adam would prevent him. His body was speaking in such a foreign language he could only guess at what it was saying. "I never listen to it,” he thought, and then, when Adam roughly pulled him back against him, and their faces were close enough for their lips to touch, he took hold of Adam’s shoulders and blurted out “I stopped listening to this. Years ago.”
> 
> Their lips touched. They began to talk without once letting their lips stray from their light touch.
> 
> "Listening to what?" Adam said, cupping Ben's face with his hands, and then dragging his fingers down his cheeks.
> 
> “I listen to other people’s voices, - and interpret them. That’s my job. That’s my problem.”
> 
> “I do that too,” Adam said, carefully licking Ben’s upper lip. “Only I sing them."
> 
> Ben was momentarily diverted. “You sing?’ he asked. Then, "I shouldn't be here."
> 
> "You’re free to go."
> 
> “But I think you're right. I was deliberately – deliberately being something.”
> 
> “I think you woke up this morning,” Adam moved his mouth to and fro over Ben’s lips, “and drew an outline around the bow – this bow, “- he kissed at the place – “Just to please me.”
> 
> “That is the silliest thing anyone has ever said to me. But your body feels like a wall.”
> 
> Adam's lips smiled against Ben's mouth. “You feel like a small but perfectly formed avalanche.”
> 
> Ben's lips returned the smile. “Good. I want to be cold.”
> 
> "Shhhh" Adam brushed the "shhh" over Ben's lips. He took note of the fact that Ben's eyes were closed. He kept his own open.
> 
> Then he began to kiss him, as coldly as he knew how.
> 
> Part 3
> 
> Ben eyes were closed but not on account of the kiss, though that in itself was novel enough in its masculine sensuality to make him have to think with his eyes closed. It was the mirroring of his entire physicality that was doing his head in – and his groin. Somehow the impetus to penetrate had become – how should he say – pure? Purely his own? Every pressure point of their bodies’touches met its reciprocal match of resistance. He was with an equal. Physically, at any rate. And what was that doing to his mind?
> 
> He opened his eyes. Adam pushed his knee between his legs, moved them apart, then used his weight to turn Ben until his back was against the wall. He pinned him there with his groin and then abruptly pulled his face away and looked to one side. He wiped his mouth. Still not looking at Ben, still looking to one side as though drawing everything within him to an apex of focus, he crushed his groin against him, grinding into him. His nostrils flared as he scrunched his eyes at the sensation. Then the moment came. He looked sideways at Ben and eyed him up.
> 
> For answer Ben slid hand down his stomach, squeezing it between the crush of Adam’s body, and roughly took hold of Adam’s cock. Nor was that enough. He used his grasp as a way to move him forward, pushing so hard Adam had to take a step back. Ben followed through with the rest of his body, almost lunging against him, but Adam stood his ground. They stood beneath the streetlight, Ben still gripping and massaging Adam's groin, Adam’s hands hanging at his sides, their chests touching, the sleet falling between their faces.
> 
> “Very well,” Ben said politely. “You've showed me where to start. I'll show you where – and how – I want to finish.” He released Adam and lifted his hand to his face. He sniffed at his palm. He smiled at Adam who was buttoning up his coat.
> 
> “I know I'm what you might call a novice,” he said. “But you. You’re like- you're like my own personal cliff-hanger .”
> 
> Adam cocked his head. He smiled on one side of his face. “There’s no closet, Ben,” Adam said. “Not for you. But you know that.” Adam reached down and took Ben’s hands and then slowly, finger by finger, removed the gloves and returned them to his pocket. Ben stood back. He revolved his splayed hands in front of him, then placed them with deliberate care on Adam’s cheeks. He wiped them as though wiping tears. “Bare hands, naked truths. I have just the place. No closets. Only stone walls and stone gates. In the rain. Will that do?”
> 
> Adam smiled. He shook his head. “It would be so easy to fall for you, just for saying that. But in lieu I’ll take the next best thing.”
> 
> “Because a fuck is a fuck,” Ben said, raising one eyebrow.
> 
> “No.” Adam shook his head again. “In this weather,” Adam looked around, “an outdoor fuck – a successful outdoor fuck – would have to be some kind of miracle.”
> 
> Ben threw his arm over Adam’s shoulder and they went off in search of a cab, laughing and talking as though they were friends. In an odd reversal of who was leading who, now it was Adam leaning on Ben. Now too it seemed that Adam was the one who was shy and new and fresh. Ben liked the reversal, liked that it could occur. Liked the shifts in magnitudes of feeling. He thought about his wife again and how she relished and demanded proofs of his love and seemed not care what his motives were, just so long as they were performed. The dishonesty of it all, not just his own but hers, made him feel their relationship was like a puddle. A dirty, graceless puddle.
> 
> But now, walking gaily along with this man at his side, - a complete stranger, no less – he felt matched with someone who could catch and return his glances, his touches and his talk without those prescribed undercurrents of gendered barter and exchange. And he felt clean. Clean and cold and himself. Gaily. He grinned at his use of the word. But this was different. For the first time in a sexual encounter he felt no onus of responsibility to perpetuate myths about himself.
> 
> The taxi he had flagged stopped a little ahead of them. They took hands and ran. They crammed into the back seat, laughing and puffing and still holding hands. Ben gave directions.
> 
> “At this hour?” the cab driver asked. “It’ll be all closed up. You won’t see nothing.”
> 
> ‘That’s exactly what we want. To see nothing.” Ben sat back. He closed his eyes. He had no idea what was going to happen, or how. He only knew where. He turned to Adam.
> 
> “Do you really think I’m - pretty?”
> 
> Adam leaned over and kissed his nose.
> 
> “No, not really. You’re interesting. And in the right light, at the right angle, -“, he turned his face this way and that -“you could pass for beautiful.”
> 
> God, I like this man, Ben thought. And fuck, I like how it easy it is to take turns.
> 
> Part 4
> 
> They seemed to be driving forever and neither wanted the journey to end. They talked about everything under their respective suns. Both thought it gratifyingly hilarious that despite the celebrity aspect to their careers neither had heard of the other, - gratifying because their status as strangers was an unmixed joy, hilarious because as strangers they had so much in common. And as though for punctuation they interwove their confidences with kisses and caresses.
> 
> It was only an hour long journey yet the darkness and seclusion of the back seat became a sanctuary to them both – and not because their intimacy was of the no-strings variety, quite the opposite, in fact. Delicate threads of connection were being woven with every word spoken, every touch performed, threads as tenuous as spider threads but precious on that very account; they both knew they were handling something fleeting and it made them incautious with their emotions.
> 
> “I want you,” Ben whispered into Adam’s mouth.
> 
> “I’m all yours,” Adam had his arm around Ben. He took a handful of Ben’s curls and pulled his head back as he leaned over him making the kiss aggressive. Once again Ben was overwhelmed by the sensation of meeting a strength equal to his own. The freedom of it, the complete absence of positionality made him grin into the kiss. He took a handful of Adam’s hair and pulled hard. Their faces were drawn apart. They stared at each other with their mouths still open and then burst out laughing, with Adam laughing so hard he buckled over until his head was in Ben’s lap. He nuzzled into his groin, growling and biting at his crotch. Ben raised his arms, as though in surrender, - but it was due to elation. It was pure and simple elation because that beautiful man's beautiful face was hidden in his lap, his erection was pulsing in response, and his heart and his breath were leaping out of him as though from a fountain.
> 
> Adam sat back up. Their laughter continued and so did their talk. Ben told Adam about his failing marriage and Adam talked about being on the brink of falling in love.
> 
> “So here you are, wondering whether you want in and here I am wondering if I should get out.” Ben pursed his lips. “I’m jealous of the guy. I don’t know you from jack. I’m not gay. But I want us to fuck on a rock and for you to fall in love with me.” Ben closed his eyes. “I want you and it hurts like fuck. What’s with that?”
> 
> Adam laid his head on Ben’s shoulder. Their hands found each other. They revelled in the solace of their fingers intertwining, releasing, locking, touching only their tips.
> 
> “Why do people like music?“ Adam said. “Or a painting? A scene in a movie? It’s because they say things you can’t say, things that badly need to be said, and you fall in love with them for saying it. And you never forget. They become part of you.”
> 
> Ben turned and kissed the side of his head. The cab drove on through the night. By the time it came to a stop neither wanted to get out.
> 
> “See what I mean,” the cab-driver said. “It’s all closed up. It’s a cold hole in this weather.”
> 
> “Holy fuck,” Adam said as he stood in the rain, pulling up his coat collar.
> 
> “Holy out-door fuck time,” Ben said. He paid the fare and together they watched the cab drive away.
> 
> Ben took Adam’s arm and led him across the road to a walk-bridge that looked down on the open-air ruin of a circular building. The bridge lamps were sufficient to make out the small grass arena that lay at its heart, strewn with a pile of fallen slabs of stone, blackened with lichens and mosses. The surrounding stone walls were thick enough to safely support the remains of arches.
> 
> They leaned over the bridge rail and looked down.
> 
> “We’ll have to climb over and jump onto that section,” Ben said. “The gates are locked.”
> 
> Adam looked at him. Despite the cold and wet he was aroused. Aroused by that bow on Ben’s top lip, his light-coloured eyes which even in the dark betrayed their blue, his smile that turned down as though concealing pain. Aroused by the craziness of their situation which somehow wasn't crazy at all.
> 
> He climbed over the railing and jumped down onto a ledge. He looked up. He didn't think he had ever in his life wanted someone this badly.
> 
> “Come on then, my little avalanche, “ he said, holding up his arm.
> 
> Part 5
> 
> The ledge Adam stood on was narrow but as soon as Ben clambered down to join him he could not wait. He threw an arm across him, to safely pin him against the wall, and began kissing him, his face, his ears, his throat, his closed eyes. The rain had eased off and the wind was shut out by the well of the ruin. Their wet faces intensified the ardency of their kisses.
> 
> Ben could hardly breathe. Adam’s tongue was engulfing more than his mouth. He felt as though a dense foam was filling his groin, his buttocks, his chest, even his legs. He pulled away from the kiss and took a deep breath. Adam slid his free hand down between their bodies and took hold of Ben’s belt. He pulled it. “This,” he said. “This.”
> 
> Ben involuntarily moved forward against Adam’s supporting arm. He hung his head, trying to collect himself then straightened up. He had never felt so protected or so capable of offering protection. He looked across at the black unseeing windows created by the arches and realised he had never felt so visible either. It was as though time itself, which he was accustomed to measuring in seconds, minutes and hours, was in fact measureless and personal, a living being who was taking a good look at him – inside and out. The foam inside him fluttered into life as though it had contained the seeds of myriad moths. He felt strong with their lightness. “Get down,” he said roughly. “I want to arrange this. Arrange you, actually.”
> 
> Adam laughed. He let go of Ben and jumped down onto a broken wall abutment, and then to the ground. Ben followed him. Together they walked around the small arena. Down there, surrounded by stone walls, their intimacy seemed complete.
> 
> “Where do you want me?” Adam whispered in Ben’s ear.
> 
> “Well, let’s see. While this may be an out-door fuck, it doesn't mean I want the rain to get in on my action.” Ben looked around. “There,” he said, pointing to a part of broken wall that was roofed by the walk-bridge.
> 
> Adam walked over to the wall. “Here?” he asked. “Standing or sitting or lying down?”
> 
> “Sitting,” Ben said. Adam climbed up and then sat, swinging his legs over the side.
> 
> “Now undo your pants,” Ben said, without moving from his position in centre of the ruin. “And tell me. “
> 
> Adam chuckled. He undid his belt, unzipped his pants, pulled his underwear down and released his penis.
> 
> "I am undone," he called out.
> 
> “Don’t touch!” Ben called out. “Listen to me.”
> 
> Adam leaned back, supporting himself with his hands. The stones were cold and rough against his hands. Ben’s figure, standing there with his arms crossed, keeping his distance, made him feel vulnerable in a child-like way.
> 
> “I want you because I can’t keep you,” Ben said. “I want you because as you said, sometimes things need badly to be said and you can’t say them. I want you to look down and see what you have done to me, see how beautiful you are to me, like a movie, or music, or a ride in a cab that takes you from nowhere to somewhere.”
> 
> Adam looked down. The low tones of Ben’s voice, regardless of what he was saying, were having an effect. Ben started walking towards him.
> 
> “I want you because with you I’m not in any danger of falling into a well.” He came close to Adam. He looked up at his face. He smiled.
> 
> “My beautiful wall,” Ben said, moving between Adam’s legs. The ledge was at the exact height for his face to be slightly above Adam’s groin. He placed his hands on Adam’s thighs. By now Adam was fully erect. Ben lowered his face and took in a deep breath. He lowered it further so that Adam’s cock knocked against his cheek. And then further still so that he could mouth over his buried testicles.
> 
> Adam put his head back. The pressure of Ben’s face between his legs and the pressure of the stones beneath his palms were of commensurate sensation. His cock felt diamond hard but not just with the blood of arousal. It was something else. My God, he thought, as a realization dawned. I am rock hard with tenderness. He looked down at Ben’s black curls, felt his tongue examining him, the warmth of saliva gushing over the head of his penis, and then down each side as Ben salivated and licked its entire length, and then the long slow licking from underneath culminating in lightly penetrating sucking and licking of the very tip.
> 
> Adam longed to hold Ben’s head but resisted the urge. He wanted the biting of stones in his hands to persist. He had never felt this safe from the demands of reciprocity and as Ben began firmly drawing his cock into his mouth he let himself forget everything but where he was. He was buried in a moment of time, in a ruin of time, and he felt the facets of his life falling into that fact like facets of a jewel. He felt that his whole self and not just his cock, was being drawn deep into Ben’s mouth, and not just into his mouth but into his deepest thoughts and emotions. He thrust deeper as Ben relaxed his jaw, steadied Adam with his hand, and began drawing him deep into his throat.
> 
> At the exact moment that Adam ejaculated his hands flew to Ben’s head and Ben’s flew up to cover his. They remained like that for a long moment. At last Ben looked up, a trickle of semen escaping the corner of his lips. It had begun to rain heavily. Adam did up his pants, re-buckled his belt.
> 
> “Come,” he said, patting the wall. Ben climbed up. Adam stood up on the wall. “Lie down,” he said. “Please,” he added.
> 
> Ben climbed up. He laid down on the wall. He put his hands behind his head. He looked up at Adam, standing there, fully clad, looking out at the ruins. He looked down at Ben, then squatted down, spread Ben’s legs apart, and moved between them. In a swift movement he laid full length on Ben, crushing him into the uneven stones that lay beneath. Ben threw his arms around him but Adam refused. “Don’t hold me,” he said gruffly. “My turn.”
> 
> He didn’t kiss Ben, or even look at him, but put his face against the side of his throat as he moved his hips, digging himself deeper into Ben’s frame. Ben arched upward, both to avoid the press of rocks and to reach into Adam's chest. Adam’s weight was indeed like a wall upon him, one that he could lean on even when it was crushing him.
> 
> “I’ll tell you why I want you,” Adam said into his throat. “It’s because you don’t come towards me with a room attached, or a door that can be used to close on us. You come like one of those arches. I can move through you and return as I please.”
> 
> Ben wanted to speak but Adam put his hand over his mouth. He edged Ben’s legs aside so that he could kneel up. He undid Ben’s pants. He jerked them down a little so that his bare buttocks were on the stones. He watched Ben’s mouth pull down at the corners, felt the trembling of his buttocks, watched the rapid rise and fall in his chest. He knelt up and undid his own pants. Ben had closed his eyes but now they opened wide. He raised his head and watched Adam lowering himself so that their erections met. Ben flinched at the touch. His mouth opened. For the first time in his life he felt the existence of his anus in a sexual context. He shuddered, clenching his buttocks. Adam raised himself up on outstretched arms and let himself dangle tantalizingly in the air.
> 
> “What I want to do, right now, I can’t. Not without hurting you.” He sat back on his haunches. Ben half sat up and looked at him. The stones were digging into his buttocks, his back and hands.
> 
> “I don’t care,” he said. “It will hurt me if you don’t.”
> 
> Adam knelt up fully so he could do his pants back up. He gazed down on Ben. “By the way,” he said, eyeing him this way and that, “this is the right angle, and the exact right light.” He grinned.
> 
> “Sit up. Kneel up.” Adam straddled the wall, letting his legs drop on either side. Ben felt suddenly and unaccountably shy. He sat up.
> 
> “Give me your hands.”
> 
> Ben offered them up one by one. Adam held his wrists and carefully licked the palms of each hand, twirling his tongue in their centres, then sliding up to suck and salivate on each finger. Then he pushed the glistening hands down into Ben’s groin.
> 
> “I want to watch,” he said. Ben looked down. “No, not that. Your eyes. I want to look in your eyes while you do it. And for you to do it it as though I’m inside you. As though you wish I was.”
> 
> Adam cupped a hand to his lips and added a pool of saliva to the head of Ben’s cock.
> 
> They locked gazes. Ben began to masturbate. His heels were digging into his buttocks, his knees were in pain. He imagined Adam was inside him and almost could feel it, the burning in his anus, the sensation of being unbearably filled, and of it not being enough, of wanting him to plunge upward so deeply that he broke into and ejaculated right into his heart. Adam saw the struggle in his eyes. He drew his legs up so that he could kneel. He bent down, opened his mouth and Ben burst inside it, crying out at the anguish of sudden warmth, the sudden grasping of Adam’s suck. He forced himself inside, enacting the penetration he had been imagining. And he shattered.
> 
> Adam smiled all over the ruins of his spent cock. He licked and smiled and rummaged lightly with his head. Ben burst out laughing. His skin was so sensitive that the feel of Adam’s hair on his thighs tickled. Adam began to laugh, still with his head buried in Ben’s groin. Ben patted his head. They could not stop laughing.
> 
> Later, after helping one another to do up their pants, they sat side by side and talked about the ruin, the weather, music and Ben’s new series of Sherlock Holmes. They swung their legs as they talked. Then Ben took out his phone.
> 
> “Shall we continue this discussion in a bed,” he said. But his tone indicated that this was more of a foregone conclusion than a question. Ben ordered the cab. They leapt from the ledge and embraced. They kissed. They murmured things. Ben felt tremulous with the discovery that he was stronger than he thought, strong enough to either mend or break his marriage, strong enough to refuse to make compromises that could stifle the voice of his inner being. Strong enough to seek out and enjoy the peace of resistance rather than the safety of surrender. His own or anyone else's.
> 
> And Adam, sensing this revelation taking place in Ben, felt loved, the one emotion that most often eluded him.
> 
> They heard the cab pulling up on the road above them. They stepped out into the rain.

  



End file.
